According to the Bluetooth specification, a standard Bluetooth device can operate as a master device for up to seven slave Bluetooth devices which are controlled by the master device to form a so-called “piconet”. Within the piconet, the master and slave devices can exchange data as if the devices were operating on a wired network. However, a standard Bluetooth device has only three (full duplex) audio channels. Thus, if the piconet is to be used to network audio data, such as voice communication, a maximum of only three slaves devices are capable of participating in the piconet. Thus, an audio network based on a Bluetooth piconet is limited to a maximum of four participants.
It would be desirable to provide a method of audio communication between Bluetooth devices that is not restricted to only four participants.